Category: Liberty

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The Cost

The Crosses Grow on Anzio

Oh, gather ’round me, comrades,
and listen while I speak;
Of a war, a war, a war —
where hell is six feet deep.

Along the shore, the cannons roar.
Oh how can a soldier sleep?
The going’s slow on Anzio
and hell is six feet deep.

Praise be to God for this captured sod
that’s rich where blood does seep;
With yours and mine, like butchered swine;
and hell is six feet deep.

That death does wait there’s no debate;
no triumph will we reap
The crosses grow on Anzio,
where hell is six feet deep.

~Audie Murphy (age 19).

This, from someone who left school in fifth grade to pick cotton in order to feed his siblings, enlisted in the Army with forged papers (because he was too young), was wounded in battle many times, in the course of a little over a year in theater became the most highly decorated enlisted soldier in US history, and among the honors won through “blood and sweat and toil and tears” was warded the medal of Honor at age 19.

The visceral response to war he penned in response to his experiences speaks to the price all too many have paid, pay today, and will pay in the future to purchase your liberty.

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Freedom! (?)

You do realize the two greatest benefits that would accrue from going back to a federal government that actually operated within the confines of its delegated powers, right?

    1. Elimination of at least 80% of the government workforce (since at least that much of the “feddle gummint” is outside constitutional legitimacy). It’d be MUCH less expensive to put all those bureaucraps on welfare than to continue to pay them and have them waste even more money on illegitimate crap.
  2.  Get the “feddle (rhymes with ‘meddle’) gummint” out of your life, as long as you do not violate the ACTUAL inherent rights of others.

Add in the FairTax and the federal government could become what it was intended to be: a defender of inerent rights whose significance is only brought to mind when it stomps on thugs violating (GENUINE, INHERENT) individual rights and on patriotic holidays.

It’d be a start. . .

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Testament of Freedom

Something to consider as July 4 approaches:

Siedbar: Note the applause between movements by “nekulturni” (those who are uncultured, boorish, exhibiting behavior inappropriate for the context) in the audience. Those who know better save their applause for the end instead of interrupting the performance. *sigh*

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According to Congress (and All the Other Crooks), Those Words Do Not Mean What They Mean

The idea that laws only apply to “the little people” is EXACTLY what the Framers wanted to avert with Article I Section 9 Clause 8 and and Article I Section 10 Clause 1 of the Constitution, denying both the feds and the states the power to grant titles of nobility. Of course, our “betters” have decided to arrogate unto themselves the PRIVILEGES and POWERS of “nobility” without the titles themselves. Because they can. Hence lawmakers immune to the laws they impose and law enFARCErs with *cough* “qualified” *cough* immunity (which means in practice, anything their allies in crime let them get away with).

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Layers and Layers of the Onion

Putting a tall fence around one’s house gives potential intruders a way to hide from third party observers, but it also gives you a way to hide your “capsaicin claymores” from potential intruders, so. . . Command or sensor detonation is the obvious decision tree. Switchable by remote?

Also working on a way to make a capsaicin fogger from my fog machine, and way to sensor trigger it (including safing it for yard use, & other controls). BTW, “capsaicin claymores”? #3 food can, CO2 cartridge, tripwire, Ghost Pepper powder, etc. When combined with things like Osage Orange as an ornamental face for a fence/wall, blinding strobes, etc., yeh, can have a tall fence/wall and be relatively safe from home intruders. Relatively. (A moat with gators would be nice, though.)

OTOH, Can live in a hardened bunker and not be safe from militarized law enFARCEment thugs.

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About That HIvemind Myth of Rampant “Gun Violence”

Yes, I said “myth.” In fact, in 2013, gun violence was at its lowest point–in a steadily decreasing occurrence–since 1993, and the trend has continued even as gun ownership has increased. That is not to say that gun violence has abated uniformly across the country. No, some of locales with the most restrictive gun laws are also where the most gun violence occurs.

In fact, one can almost take all the “anti-gun” talking points and directly refute them with facts, readily available to ordinary people. So, why do the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind and various anti-gun groups and individuals promote more restrictive policies that have no rational basis? Well, many are just (self-made) useful idiots adopting irrational ideas based on fiction as an emotional response to Hivemind media and political manipulation. But why the manipulation via lies and purely emotional appeals to begin with? To any thinking person, the answer is obvious: because the ends of the manipulators cannot be served by truth and reason.

Here Are 8 Stubborn Facts on Gun Violence in America Here are the bullet points, but do read the whole thing:

  1. Violent crime is down and has been on the decline for decades.
  2. The principal public safety concerns with respect to guns are suicides and illegally owned handguns, not mass shootings.
  3. A small number of factors significantly increase the likelihood that a person will be a victim of a gun-related homicide.
  4. Gun-related murders are carried out by a predictable pool of people.
  5. Higher rates of gun ownership are not associated with higher rates of violent crime.
  6. There is no clear relationship between strict gun control legislation and homicide or violent crime rates.
  7. Legally owned firearms are used for lawful purposes much more often than they are used to commit crimes or suicide.
  8. Concealed carry permit holders are not the problem, but they may be part of the solution.

(Further development and links to sources at the article)

The crux of the matter is that those advancing the myths about “gun violence” need scared people reacting irrationally to false facts in order to advance more and more government control over individuals’ lives. “Gun violence” scare tactics serve the same purpose as whatever drug du jour scare tactics to: calls for more government intervention. (Yeh, the “opiod crisis” is another manufactured crisis intended to keep pumping up fear and calls for more control, and so far the “war on opiods” seems to do more harm than good, making it increasingly difficult for doctors to prescribe pain meds that are legitimately needed.)

Just always keep in mind: any government action that does not protect actual individual rights is almost assuredly an illegitimate power grab and a violation of individual rights. Period.

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The Federal Government Has NO “Rights”

I am so very tired of unthinking people parroting lies from tyrannical statists concerning the “rights” of the federal government.The federal government has no rights. It has specific duties and responsibilities denoted in the Constitution, all aimed at protecting the rights of citizens from infringement. The People also allow the Constitution to empower the federal government with powers derived from themselves to effect the protection of the rights of the People from infringement.

The Constitution also specifically limits the federal government in specific ways (ways most often dishonored in the breach1 nowadays) to forbid it power to infringe on individuals’ rights. One of those limits, noted in the Second amendment, is getting a lot of lying press from the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, recently. All of the lies being told by the Hivemind are in service to the goals of tyrannical statists who are in favor of removing the People’s final check on a tyrannical government, as well as robbing individuals of an effective means to project their right of self-defense against any bad actors (including government bad actors, at all levels).

Just keep in mind that the Hivemind isnow, has been, and will continue to lie about so-called “gun control.” The truth about “gun control” is quite different in many ways than the Hivemind presents, but one critical way is that we, the People, are meant to be a check on tyranny instituted by government. The Founders viewed ALL of the People, save government officials, as part of the militia meant to protect against government infringement of individual rights. That alone would end “gun control” talk, if truth were told both about the primary purpose the Framers added the Second Amendment and the “long train of abuses” of individual rights that have been and continue to be perpetrated by the federal government against citizens.

1

Apologies to The Bard for mangling his words. The original “more honor’d in the breach” referred to breaking with bad custom. Instead, I refer to the dishonorable behavior of the federal government in ignoring its constitutionally-specified duties and exceeding its constitutionally limited powers.

Horatio:
What does this mean, my lord?

Hamlet:
The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swagg’ring up-spring reels;
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
Is it a custom?

Hamlet:
Ay, marry, is’t,
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honor’d in the breach than the observance,

Hamlet Act 1, scene 4, 7–16

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Dangerous to Whom?

The Puffington Host touts the bill referenced in the linked article as “The Most Dangerous Bill You’ve Never Heard Of.” Dangerous to whom? Certainly not to citizens who are concerned about the tsunami of “feddle gummint” encroachment on their rights. Hmmm, must be dangerous to statists and other anacho-tyrannists. . .

This bill is barely a start on reversing the illegitimate encroachment on God-given rights that darned near the whole apparatus of the “feddle gummint bureaucrappy” has become.

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The Tree of Liberty

Everyone is familiar (by “everyone” I mean, of course, everyone except the historically and culturally illiterate 80% of our current society *sigh*) with the Jefferson comment,

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

May we now add the tears of soi-dissant “liberals” to the nurture of liberty? Oh, and how about the tears of CACAs (members of the Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism), as well?

Continue reading “The Tree of Liberty”

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Power and Corruption

A small war of words between Lord Acton and Frank Herbert:

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” ~Sir John Dalberg-Acton

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: it is not that power corrupts, but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.” ~ Frank Herbert, Dune.

My own take, in brief:

Actually, it is both. Most folks can be corrupted by the ability to exercise power over others. For some, it is after the fact: they seek power because they are corrupt; for others it is a very small step; for still others it is a process that proceeds at snail’s pace, so that the longer they exercise power–even intending that exercise to be for the good of their charges–the more corrupt they become.

A minor example of this is parenthood. A parent exercises just power in raising their children within sensible boundaries so that they can lead (generally) happy, productive, and safe lives (within whatever areas are under their control). That authority/power should phase out as the children achieve maturity. It is when children either eschew the responsibilities of maturity and continue to rely on their parents for support or when parents continue to exert controlling “influence” over their grown children that the process–and the individuals involved–either become corrupt or reveal their corrupt nature.

And so with government: exercising controlling power over a supposedly free people is corrupt and illegitimate. Those who want to be a part of that control are corrupt to begin with. Those who become a part of that process with the goal of ameliorating the effects of such illegitimate power inevitably either become corrupt themselves or are purged by the system.

(Long version: The Revolt of the Masses (Ortega) and Suicide of the West (Burnham), et al)